European Commission Policies and Initiatives
Public Diplomacy towards Member-Countries and Candidate-Countries Communication with EU citizens and those of membership-aspiring countries represents a significant share of the Commission’s public diplomacy efforts. These communications are continuously increasing in importance with the diversification of EU membership and the growing complexity of EU policies. They are particularly relevant after the rejection of the proposed European Constitution by the 2005 referenda in France and the Netherlands. The responsibility of engaging with publics in member-countries is assumed by the Directorate General (DG) Communication. It serves as the main planning entity and coordinates the efforts of all other DGs' communication units into one joint output. In addition to explaining and promoting EU norms and values, these communication initiatives aim at fostering a sense of common European identity among the multiple nationalities that compose the European Union, as well as strengthening the connection between the citizens of the EU and its institutions. The ultimate goal is to increase commitment to the European project and participation in the political life of the Union. As established in the 20.07.2005 Action Plan to Improve Communicating Europe by the Commission, "policies and activities, as well as their impact on everyday lives, have to be communicated and advocated in a manner that people can understand and relate to if citizens are to follow political developments at the European level." To ensure that its programs are not disconnected from popular sentiments and that citizens are properly socialized into its policies, the Commission is careful to place an emphasis on the two-way aspect of its communications. As stated in the Action Plan, "communication is more than information: it establishes a relationship and initiates a dialogue with European citizens, it listens carefully and it connects to people … It is not just about EU institutions informing EU citizens but also about citizens expressing their opinions so that the Commission can understand their perceptions and concerns. Europe’s citizens want to make their voices in Europe heard and their democratic participation should have a direct bearing on EU policy formulation and output." Domestic public opinion and commitment to the expansion of the European project are of particular significance in the context of the ongoing process of enlargement of the EU. The implementation of enlargement policies is carried out by the DG Enlargement which is also heading all related communication and information work within the framework of the Communication Strategy for Enlargement. The Communication Strategy is aimed at applicant countries as well as at citizens of the EU with the goal of promoting enlargement as a mutually beneficial process. The Strategy follows a decentralized approach and is implemented in cooperation with various sectors of society at the EU and national level such as the European Parliament, national governments and parliamentary and regional assemblies, business and industry leaders, trade unions and professional associations, as well as representatives of civil society, religious bodies and educational institutions. To further the goals of the strategy, numerous EU Information Centers have been set up in the candidate countries. They are responsible for answering EU-related inquiries, organizing press conferences, lectures and seminars. A large portion of their budget is spent on the publication of brochures such as "EU Glossary," "ABC of Community Law," and "Your Business and the Euro" with the goal of providing a more easily comprehensible guide to the complex governance structure of the Union. In addition, the Commission has established a presence through several new media such as the Internet server Europa, the television service Europe by Satellite, the question and answer service Europe Direct, and it has opened its own space on the popular video broadcaster YouTube called EU Tube. In order to buttress the political and economic alignment of member-states and candidate-countries with a sense of cultural community, the Commission’s strategy also includes various cultural events such as celebrations of "Europe days" and "Europe weeks," yearly European film festivals, concerts, and language fairs. The Commission measures the success of its public diplomacy by assessing the evolution of public opinion through the Eurobarometer surveys and by monitoring the tone of media coverage of enlargement issues in local news outlets. In addition, some Delegations promote greater media attention to EU issues with competitions such as the annual Robert Schuman Award for Journalists, awarded since 1998 by the Delegations in Sofia and Budapest, or the Annual Media Award in Estonia. The communication efforts of the Commission are further reinforced by the individual communication strategies of each candidate-country. Thus the two-way communication cycle is fully achieved. The cooperation with governments in the framework of general and individual communication strategies allows for sharing of experience and targeted distribution of tasks and thus enhances the work of both the Commission and the prospective member-countries. (For an example of a national communication strategy consider Bulgaria's EU Communication Strategy.) Communication strategies have as yet been instituted only towards member- and candidate-countries, but many of the practices developed within their framework receive application in the Commission's public diplomacy policies towards third-countries. European Neighborhood Policy and Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Besides the members of the EU and the countries that are participating in the wider enlargement process, the Commission is also interested in building close partnerships with its neighbors to the east and south. This cooperation develops within the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Euromed). A significant part of both partnerships has been devoted to public diplomacy type activities with participating countries. The ENP is a recent initiative, which aims to expand EU presence and engagement in its "new neighbors" after the last round of enlargement and strengthen further the relations established earlier under Euromed. According to Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, "We share a past and many common interests with our southern and eastern neighbors, from trade to cultural exchanges, from migration issues to environmental cooperation. … It will be a key vehicle for promoting our European values, and sharing the fruits of the EU’s enlargement to the benefit of our citizens and our neighbors."http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/world/enp/index_en.htm The ENP encompasses Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine. One of the four main areas of cooperation within the policy is the development of people-to-people contacts. Euromed or the so called Barcelona Process represents another broad mechanism for public diplomacy activities. Philip Fiske de Gouveia and Hester Plumridge describe it as "arguably the greatest single public diplomacy initiative ever conceived." The partnership provides for a wide framework of relations – political, economic, environmental, social and cultural. Within this framework the EU works on a bilateral level with each of the partners – Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey; and on a regional level addressing common problems and goals in the Mediterranean. The Social, Cultural and Human Partnership represents the public diplomacy dimension within Euromed. It is an example of a two-way process of dialogue and cooperation. Its goal is "the rapprochement between peoples through a social, cultural and human partnership aimed at encouraging understanding between cultures and exchanges between civil societies" . To serve this purpose various programs have been instituted. The goal of the Euromed Audiovisual Program is to "contribute to mutual understanding between the peoples of the EU and the southern Mediterranean region by highlighting their common values and the richness of the region’s audiovisual and cultural diversity. The programme supports regional projects in the field of television and cinema, particularly in the following areas: preservation of archives, production and coproduction and distribution and circulation of audiovisual products." For instance, as part of Euromed Audiovisual, a 3-year project called "Cinema Med" was initiated in March of 2000. The first phase of this project introduced a festival of Arabic films from the Mediterranean region into seven European cities from Palermo to Edinburgh. The purpose of the festival was to serve as a forum between directors and the European audience and thus provide a window to the Arabic world and help the distribution of Arabic films through Europe. The second phase was a screenplay seminar organized by two European authors for two Arabic Universities – Marrakesh and Beirut. The last phase was dedicated to the work of the famous Egyptian filmmaker Salah Abou Seif. Its purpose was to use European and Arabic film archives in order to restore and preserve the work of the author. The Euromed Heritage Program is "a strategy that would turn cultural heritage into a catalyst for cooperation throughout the Mediterranean." It was developed in 1996 and is aimed at uniting the 37 Mediterranean partners in the preservation and common appreciation of the region’s extraordinary historic and cultural heritage. In addition, through projects such as Museums with no Frontiers: an Example of Learning about Each Other, the Euromed heritage program helped promote tourism and educate the European publics about their Mediterranean neighbors’ culture. The Euromed Youth Action Program focuses on youth exchanges, training and voluntary service (in NGOs for example). It "aims to facilitate the integration of young people into social and professional life and boost the development of a genuine civil society in all Mediterranean partners. It is also a key tool to promote communication, mutual tolerance and respect among young people across the region." The program has been very popular, since over 8 000 young people have participated by 2003. In addition, a sufficient portion of the MEDA (the financial framework for implementing Euromed) budget is dedicated to promoting higher education exchanges with all the Mediterranean partners. In this respect, the EU is employing its educational program Tempus-MED. NGOs are involved in a variety of projects under Euromed. One such initiative is the Euromed Civil Forum - a platform for non-governmental organizations in the region on the subjects of human rights, youth, women, volunteerism, migration, and the environment. Another important civil society initiative is a Seminar on the Status of Women in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. It "aims to help promote women’s rights and the democratic development of North African society by strengthening civil society organizations." Good examples of the way Euromed engages with society in partnership countries represent the Commission’s initiatives in Egypt such as the Arab Documentary Workshop Project – Arab TV Program on Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the Euro-med Youth Awards in Cairo. In an effort to further the democratization of the region, the EU is also planning to launch an Arabic-language television channel. The channel would be operated by Euronews, the leading European news channel, and would introduce European ideas and the EU perspective on international news in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Euronews has already gained experience in such broadcasting since it used to have an Arabic service for two years in the end of the 1990s. An Arabic-language broadcast informing on the every-day political life and functioning of the EU institutions would not only aim at reforming the region but also build up an image for the European Union in the Mediterranean. Chief mediators of the Euromed policies in partner countries are the Commission’s Delegations. In addition to their ever-increasing role participation in managing the policies of the Barcelona process, the delegations have an important public diplomacy responsibility. They "play an active role in providing information on the partnership, and in promoting cultural activities, like dance festivals, film festivals, and other events that contribute to promoting awareness and understanding of different cultures." Delegations of the Commission The Delegations of the European Commission exercise a variety of communication and information activities such as the publication of brochures and newsletters, the organization of information centers, setting up of websites and information portals, and celebrations of Europe Day in each country etc. In particular, within countries applying for accession the delegations develop a wide network of activities aimed at educating about the EU institutions. Some authors consider the delegations to be much more involved in public diplomacy related activities than are traditional embassies. Michael Bruter in his Diplomacy Without a State: The External Delegations of the European Commission describes the delegations’ diplomacy as "consumer-oriented" in the sense that consumer services are the primary focus of the delegations’ efforts. These services directed towards non-institutional local actors include economic expansion (local businesses), regional development (local actors, NGOs, IGOs) and communication (local media, academia, general public). He notes that in general, as well as in each individual region, people providing services primarily directed towards non-institutional demand are over-represented compared to those working for institutional demand. He contributes this phenomenon to the fact that traditional diplomacy leaves consumer-oriented needs largely unsatisfied. As a result, the delegations found a niche in which to affirm their role and develop their activities. Another reason, according to Bruter, might be that most delegations were established very recently as compared to national embassies. The latter are now starting to consider the necessity of reforming their functions. The type of diplomacy practiced by the delegations appears, therefore, to represent as much a fundamental new trend in diplomatic activities as an individuality of their non-state based status. … The fact that most of their services are directed towards the private sector is the defining characteristic of the delegations. … The delegations provide information to the general public and academia via information centers and various media, descriptions of norms and conditions to business, and represent the "voice of Europe" to the local media. More generally, and in part without being able to control it, delegations generate symbols and images of "Europe" to the world. The Delegation of the European Commission to the USA presents a good example of an engaged public diplomacy strategy. As Philip Fiske de Gouveia and Hester Plumridge point out, the EU delegation to Washington is one of the first to embrace the term "public diplomacy" in its work. They list four distinct areas of public diplomacy practice at the Delegation: "general perception-oriented public diplomacy (e.g. correcting American public misperceptions of contemporary Europe); specific issue public diplomacy (for instance, lobbying for the extension of the US visa waiver scheme to all 25 EU member states); co-operative EU-US public diplomacy (identifying ways of working with the US government on, for example, public diplomacy strategies in the Middle-East); competitive and conflictual EU-US public diplomacy (relating to issues of dispute between the EU and US such as the Airbus-Boeing rivalry or lifting of the EU-China arms ban)." The image of the EU in the US is the responsibility of the Press and Public Diplomacy Section. Its task is to promote awareness of the EU among the American public employing a wide variety of activities such as multimedia tours, speaking tours ("Dialogue Tours"), news releases, public information services and the EUVP. The Press and Public Diplomacy Section is headed by Anthony Gooch who has also been appointed a Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. (For more information on the public diplomacy strategy of the Delegation see Taking it to the US: The European Union's Greatest Public Diplomacy Challenge, Presentation by Anthony Gooch.) Another Delegation developing a comprehensive public diplomacy approach is the European Commission’s Delegation to Canada.This commitment is officially stated on the Delegation’s website. "It conducts an active public diplomacy and information service, aimed at informing Canadians about current developments in the European Union." In 2004 and 2005 the European Commission has opened calls for proposals on Public Diplomacy, Policy Research and Outreach Devoted to the European Union and EU-Canada Relations and awarded various grants for public diplomacy activities in Canada. Canada, like the US, is a country of long-standing cultural and linguistic links to Europe. Therefore, public diplomacy efforts have a sound foundation to build on. Special attention is given to exchange programs for young people operated within the Erasmus Mundus program, interparliamentary meetings, and business-to-business contacts as part of the Canada-Europe Round Table (CERT). Directorates General (DGs) The work of the Commission's more than 120 Delegations is administered and coordinated by the DG External Relations (better known as the DG RELEX). The DG RELEX heads the Commission's public diplomacy efforts and is responsible for ensuring a unified approach to projecting the Union's identity abroad. To achieve this goal, the DG RELEX disposes of an annual information and communication budget in the amount of 7 million Euro. In addition, the DG works closely with the Commissioner for External Relations and the other DGs with external remit such as Development, Trade, and ECHO, which each operate their own information and communication units. The DG Development has significant public diplomacy potential since the EU has provided generous amounts of foreign aid to developing countries. Unfortunately, the visibility of its development efforts has been less prominent , leading the DG to adopt an external Information and Communication Strategy 2005 – 2009 and launch an information campaign under the motto "Europe Cares" to draw attention to its support for the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs). The overall purpose of the campaign, as stated, is to "address wide-spread ignorance about the EU’s position as the world’s most significant aid donor with activities promoting development objectives across the globe." http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/body/tmp_docs/external_strategy_en.pdf#zoom=100 Lack of awareness of the EU’s philanthropic activity is not limited to the DG Development. The world’s number one humanitarian aid provider, DG ECHO has suffered from similar insufficiencies in its communication efforts. Under-funding and under-staffing are cited as the primary reasons for these failures. For example, according to some sources, DG ECHO employs only two information officers for communication work covering the entire continent of Africa. While it is not part of the RELEX family, the Education and Culture Directorate General is also charged with an important public diplomacy purview, namely EU cultural diplomacy. Cultural and educational exchanges are particularly dynamic among member-states. They are carried out in the framework of programs such as Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and others. These programs provide valuable experience in cultural, educational and vocational exchange and could serve to develop similar capability with third-countries. For example, some of the exchange programs initially instituted for EU-citizens only are now being opened to countries from the European Economic area (Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway), and countries signatories of Association and Cooperation agreements with the EU. The partnership with the countries of Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union is within the framework of the PHARE and TACIS programs respectively. The Social, Cultural and Human dimension of Euromed provides for a very well developed mechanism for cultural exchange and cooperation with countries from the Mediterranean. In addition, all countries of the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and Central Asia are included in the Tempus (Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies) program for university cooperation. Through the June 2000 Agreement of Cotonou, replacing the Lome Convention of 1975 – 2000, the EU and 77 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific regions pledge to preserve each other’s cultural heritage and values. Based on the close cultural, historical and linguistic links, the EU is in close cultural and educational partnership with the five North American countries as well. Examples include the EU-USA Cooperation in Higher Education and Vocational Training and the EU-Canada Cooperation in Higher Education and Vocational Training. Individual programs in higher education have also been set up with Japan – The EU-Japan Pilot Cooperation in Higher Education, Australia – The EU-Australia Cooperation in Higher Education and Vocational Training, and New Zealand – The EU-New Zealand Pilot Cooperation in Higher Education. Another program in higher education, open to third countries, is Erasmus Mundus. The program aims to support high quality European master’s courses with a "strong external projection" in order to attract students and scholars from around the world. It also provides assistance for Europeans to study abroad. The program’s budget is 230 million Euro for the five years (2004-2008) of its duration. "In concrete terms, Erasmus Mundus will support about 100 Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses of outstanding academic quality. It will provide grants for some 5,000 graduate students from third countries to follow these Masters Courses, and for more than 4,000 EU graduate students involved in these courses to study in third countries. The programme will also offer teaching or research scholarships in Europe for over 1,000 incoming third-country academics and for a similar number of outgoing EU scholars. Last but not least, Erasmus Mundus will support about 100 partnerships between Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses and higher education institutions in third countries."http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/mundus/index_en.html#2 European Union Visitors Program One of the oldest exchange programs of the European Union is the European Union Visitors Program (EUVP). It was instituted in 1974 with the US and later included Canada, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, and candidate-countries. The program’s initial goal was to promote understanding of the EU and form influential contacts with the political elites in the US. Therefore, a considerable influence on its development played the practice gained by American public diplomacy itself (for instance, as a model was used the International Visitors Program). The EUVP originated as an initiative of the European Parliament but responsibility was then shared in a joint steering Committee between the Parliament and the European Commission. In addition, the program differs from most of the Commission’s exchange programs in that it is not academically focused. It is directed towards young professionals who are in a position of becoming influential in the political life of their country, such as governmental officials, journalists, trade unionists, educators, officials of non-profit and non-governmental organizations. Today the program is playing an important role in the EU enlargement and regional cooperation strategies. An EUVP visit consists of an individual five- to eight-day program of meetings with EU officials at the EU institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg and/or Luxembourg. All programs are coordinated and arranged by the EUVP Secretariat and not by individual participants. Despite the well-developed concept, this public diplomacy mechanism of the EU remains underused. In a comprehensive study of the Program Giles Scott-Smith concludes that "the EUVP … is a flexible tool for establishing significant contacts and providing a means to discuss matters of mutual interest, as well as being a prestigious ‘calling card’ to project the EU’s presence abroad. Yet the inability of the Commission to match the original ambition of the Parliament with enough resources and infrastructural support confirms the view that the EU remains unsure of its use of public diplomacy and unwilling to sufficiently project its ‘soft power’ abroad. … Unless the Union asserts its international identity more, the EUVP will remain an under-utilized model for potential public diplomacy program." Such criticism remains common among authors who have researched the EU public diplomacy strategies. According to Philip Fiske de Gouveia and Hester Plumridge, for example, "to date, the way that Europe and the EU communicate with third-country publics has been atomized and disjointed. There is arguably not enough co-operation between EU member states’ own public diplomacy organizations – and the capacity of the EU institutions to engage in public diplomacy activities is limited by a lack of resources and political will." European Union Soft Power Despite the above listed shortcomings in the implementation of a comprehensive EU public diplomacy strategy, the soft power resource and the potential of some of the long-established public diplomacy mechanisms of several EU-member countries such as Alliance Francaise, the British Council, and Goethe Institute are enormous. Joseph Nye gives various examples of Europe’s advantages in the competition for global popularity, cultural and political attractiveness and influence. Many European states have a strong cultural attractiveness: half of the ten most widely spoken languages in the world are European. Spanish and Portuguese link Iberia to Latin America, English is the language of the United States and the far-flung Commonwealth, and there are nearly 50 Francophone countries who meet at a biannual summit at which they discuss policies and celebrate their status as countries having French in common. … Though much smaller than the United States, Britain and France each spend about the same as the United States on public diplomacy. … The Europeans have a longer tradition and spend more, particularly in international cultural relations, an area in which France had the highest per capita spending, over $17 and more than four times that of second-ranked Canada; Britain and Sweden rank third and fourth. … Europeans provide 70 percent of overseas development assistance to poor countries – four times more than the United States. Europe also has ten times as many troops as the United States involved in peacekeeping operations under multilateral organizations such as the UN and NATO. … At the same time, many European domestic policies on capital punishment, gun control, climate change, and the rights of homosexuals are probably closer to the views of many younger people in rich countries around the world than are American government policies. The EU itself possesses a considerable amount of soft power due to its nature as a multilateral organization based on shared values and principles and its status as the world’s largest aid donor. The pursuit of European countries to find economic well-being, political unity and peace through multilateralism is a powerful source of credibility for EU policies, as is Europe's contemporary image as an island of social democracy and prosperity. Further acknowledgment deserves the role of the EU as a generator of democratic change in most of Eastern Europe which undertook wide-ranging political, economic and legal reforms in order to share in the European project. As Joseph Nye concurs "(EU) soft power is demonstrated by the fact that not only millions of individuals but also whole states want to enter it" . The EU has exercised a positive influence not only on candidate-countries, where prospects for enhanced security through the political union and economic dividends through the internal market have been a major incentive for change. Its appealing image in the rest of the world is often built on its support for social-democratic values, environmental issues, human rights, criminal law, and poverty eradication. In fact, nearly nine in ten Americans agree that the EU can help solve world problems through diplomacy, trade, and development aid even though it is not as military powerful as the US. Through its accumulated soft power and the variety of ongoing programs and partnerships, the EU is generating a strong public diplomacy capacity. To date, the European Commission has been particularly successful in engaging with neighboring and membership-aspiring countries, but not as devoted to developing a comprehensive and coherent communication strategy with third-countries. While various measures and programs are underway, the lack of co-ordination, funding and political will is thwarting the realization of their full potential. If the activities of all DGs and Delegations are better coordinated and the experience gained from communications and exchange within the EU and its immediate neighbourhood is put to use (together with that of member-countries themselves), the EU could begin to project a much stronger and clearer identity to the rest of the world. This would be a policy beneficial not only to EU institutions, but to member-states as well. References 1. Explaining Enlargement, A progress Report on the Communication Strategy for Enlargement, DG Enlargement Information Unit, March 2002 3. European Infopolitik: Developing EU Public Diplomacy Strategy, Philip Fiske de Gouveia and Hester Plumridge,Foreign Policy Centre, November 2005, p.18 4. Barcelona declaration, November 1995, Social, cultural and human chapter 5. Europe and the Mediterranean: towards a closer partnership, An overview of the Barcelona Process in 2002, European Communities, March 2003 6. Ein Europa der Voelker bauen. Die Europaeische Union und die Kultur, Europaeische Kommission, 2002 7. Europe and the Mediterranean: towards a closer partnership, An overview of the Barcelona Process in 2002, European Communities, March 2003 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. EU-funded TV channel would preach to Arab world, Andrew Beatty, EuropeanVoice.com 17. Europe and the Mediterranean: towards a closer partnership, An overview of the Barcelona Process in 2002, European Communities, March 2003 18. Diplomacy without a state: The External Delegations of the European Commission, Michael Bruter, Journal of European Public Policy 6 (2) (1999): 183-205 19. Ibid. 20. European Infopolitik: Developing EU Public Diplomacy Strategy, Philip Fiske de Gouveia and Hester Plumridge,Foreign Policy Centre, November 2005, p.18 21. Ibid., p. 18 22. Ibid., p. 18 23. Ibid., p. 18 24. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 29. Mending the Unhinged Alliance in the 1970’s: Transatlantic Relations, Public Diplomacy, and the Origins of the European Union Visitors Programme, Giles Scott-Smith, Diplomacy and Statescraft, Vol. 16 No. 14 (December 2005) 30. Ibid. 31. European Infopolitik: Developing EU Public Diplomacy Strategy, Philip Fiske de Gouveia and Hester Plumridge,Foreign Policy Centre, November 2005, p.18 32. Soft Power. The Means to Success in World Politics, Joseph Nye, 2004 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. About the Author Iskra Kirova, USC Center on Public Diplomacy Research Associate